Author: Sven Lennartz
Co-Founder of Smashing Magazine. Former writer, web designer, freelancer and webworker. Author of several books.
Google Profile: https://plus.google.com/111456164589690923931/posts
Grunge Style In Modern Web Design
- January 29th, 2008
- 129 Comments
Most design trends come unexpectedly, evolve over time, become pointless and finally disappear from the design landscape. This holds particularly for web design, which is — just as every other creative field — prone for over-hyping and over-usage of trends. Being used excessively (sometimes properly, but mostly without any reasonable ...
Read more...Adobe Flash Tutorials – Best of
- January 17th, 2008
- 120 Comments
Although usability evangelists often consider Flash to be a usability nightmare, used properly, Flash can provide users with a rich and interactive interface which would be impossible otherwise. Today Flash is the de-facto standard for interactive elements on the Web as most users install Flash plug-in by default. And in ...
Read more...Isn’t it sweet? Mascots in Modern Web Design
- January 15th, 2008
- 63 Comments
The more emotional a site design is, the more likely it is to evoke positive feelings within its visitors. To achieve a lasting impression, designers tend to use visual cues and offer some eye candy for hurried and hectic users. E.g. vibrant color schemes, photos and illustrations can be used ...
Read more...Adobe Photoshop Tutorials – Best Of
- January 10th, 2008
- 239 Comments
When it comes to graphic design, Adobe Photoshop is usually the first option to consider. However, the software itself is a quite tough nut to crack — and definitely extremely hard to master. For instance, the concepts are not always intuitive and it’s not always clear when to use what ...
Read more...Hand-Drawing Style In Modern Web Design
- January 3rd, 2008
- 69 Comments
The most valuable and innovative ideas had all been handwritten first. That’s no big news, since designers tend to produce first sketches as paper prototypes anyway; still it’s important, because web design is different from “usual” design. Of course, it also has a personal note and it is hand-made, however ...
Read more...Favicons Episode 5: The Delicate Beauties
- January 1st, 2008
- 31 Comments
The New Year’s Eve is a tricky time for designers. Some of us eagerly analyze deadlines, define milestones and refine the time schedule for the upcoming year. The other ones discover the need to update footers and copyright statements on their web-sites (by the way, have you actually replaced “2007″ ...
Read more...Smashing Highlights 2007
- December 27th, 2007
- 45 Comments
Although Smashing Magazine is quite young, a number of things happened in 2007. Aside from dozens of articles, we’ve organized few contests, re-designed our weblog and we also have released two WordPress-themes and a Smashing free font. In this post we revise what happened on Smashing Magazine over the last ...
Read more...Paper Strips Menus
- December 17th, 2007
- 57 Comments
The beauty of an excellent design lies in designer’s attention to smallest details. Conventions are our friends; however, to stand out, a design needs a creative spin, an elegant play of colors, some unique flavour — a small detail that would make a big difference. Where the boundaries between traditional solutions ...
Read more...Icons For Your Desktop and Icons For Your Web Designs
- November 29th, 2007
- 109 Comments
The value of icons lies in their ability to communicate with visitors or users in a more intuitive and effective way. Jakob Nielsen, the maestro of usability, postulated few years ago that “recognition rather than recall” is one of the basic heuristics for user-friendly design. In fact, it’s necessary to ...
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